Determinants of income from wheat and rape production in projection for 2020 in Poland

Abstract

The study used the accounting data collected on 22 individual farms which at the same time cultivated winter wheat and winter rape in 2011 and 2013. The aim of the study was to determine the impact on the income from the cultivation of wheat and rape, predicted in prospect of 2020, taking into account the rate of change in yield and prices of wheat and rape and prices of means of agricultural production. Moreover, an attempt was made to determine the strength of influence of fluctuations in crop and sale price on deviations of income from the projection for 2020. The calculations showed that, compared to the average of the studied years, in 2020 income from the cultivation of wheat will increase by 23.4%, and that of rape by 58.4%. However, increase in costs of cultivating wheat, faster than increase in outputs, will affect the profitability of production – by 2.0 percentage points, while for rape profitability it will increase by 7.7 pp. After taking into account the variability of the yield, income from cultivating wheat may vary by ±22.5%, and in the case of rape by as much as ±41.5%. Wheat and rape show much greater sensitivity to the variability of the sale price, and, as a result, income may vary by ±72.5 and ±69.2%, respectively. The study contributes to the development of research meth­ods and can be used by farmers and decision-making centres.